Hey Church!

“Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty.” (Rev. 15:3)

When we read the account of creation in the opening pages of the Bible, it is easy to gloss through the six days like we’re reading a grocery list. Light: check. Vegetation: check. Man: check! But today I want to help us slow down and meditate on the intricacies of some of the things God created in those six days.

Let me say from the outset that I’m no scientist and cannot fact check all of the statistics below with my own exhaustive research. However, I did my best with the time I had to check and balance details from a number of online sources. Even given that “grain of salt,” let your heart and mind praise Him for His “great and marvelous works”! Whether we zoom out to behold the incomprehensibly vast universe we live in, or zoom in to examine the tiniest subatomic particles, we will see the creative genius of our God.

Take, for example, what we know of the observable universe, which is estimated to be (at most) only 3% of the whole.

Imagine you took a 3” round cookie cutter to the beach, stuck it 2” deep into the wet sand, pulled it out and counted how many grains of sand it contained. If you could approximate the total depth, width, and length of the beach, you would then be able to make an educated guess how many grains of sand are on the beach in total, based on your sample. In a simplistic way, that’s what scientists have done to estimate how many galaxies are in the universe.

Looking at a picture like the one above, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute explains, “You look at a small patch of the sky, and you count everything in that small patch and then multiply over the size of the sky.” But it isn’t as easy as it may sound. One problem they face is the question of how many objects (stars, planets) make up a “galaxy.” Another significant challenge in estimating the number of galaxies in the universe is that we do not know its total dimensions. That means that we can count what we see in each small sample, but unless we know how deep into space galaxies cease to exist and the borders around our universe are defined, we cannot truly know how many times over our sample must be multiplied to account for 100%.

With all of that in mind, the estimated number of galaxies in the universe is 100 billion at minimum. However, “If we set a mass cutoff [minimums to be counted a “galaxy”] and try to make this conservative, like a million solar masses [i.e. objects like stars and planets], we end up with an average number of… about 1 to 2 trillion [galaxies].” If, in fact, the segment of the universe that we can observe turns out to be less than 3% of the whole, then that number would, of course, be greater.

God created all of these wonders–both seen and unseen–and set them in their proper orbit on the fourth day.

On day six, God created man. We read past that simple statement of fact, but stop and think about it for a moment: God created every cell, hair, fingerprint, bone, tissue, muscle, ligament, blood vessel, chromosome, protein, antibody, hormone, neural pathway, and nerve (to say nothing of our rational minds or everlasting souls!) and told each of them how to function, develop, and reproduce. Our hearts require no batteries to pump blood to all our organs and extremities; our brains are too complex to comprehend, no matter how far scientific technology has advanced.

The human eye, which is one of the most complex organs in the body (perhaps second only to the brain), has often been used as an apologetic for creative design. Just two weeks after conception (!), millions of interdependent, working parts are brought together in a way that put modern-day camera engineers to shame. More than one million nerve fibers connect each eye to the brain, seven million photoreceptor cone cells allow us to see in color, and 100 million photoreceptor rods make it possible to see in dimly lit conditions. No two people share the same eye color hue and each iris contains 256 unique characteristics (compared to 40 in fingerprints), which is why retinal scans are such a reliable means of personal identification.

That barely scratches the surface of all the amazing features of the human eye! (Speaking of scratches, another fun fact I read is that the eye heals very quickly. A minor scratch on the cornea, treated with care, will heal within 48 hours.) Just like the unknown dimensions of the universe, there are more intricate details and complex functions in one eye than we may ever fully know. And that’s just one small part of the body! Do a quick head-to-toe scan of yourself in the mirror (or use your imagination) and marvel at the brilliant design of each part.

Back to the point of all of this: God said “Let us make man in our image…” and all of THAT is what He created! All by the word of His mouth.

Over the weekend, meditate on each thing God created in Genesis 1 (I’ve summarized the days in a bullet list below). If you have time and interest, search the web for “amazing facts about [fill in the creation]” and see what new things you can learn. Come to church ready to sing to the Creator, “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty!”

Day 1: Light created and divided from darkness
Day 2: Atmosphere and divided from oceans
Day 3: Land, water, vegetation
Day 4: Sun, moon, stars, and planets
Day 5: Creatures to fill the sky and waters
Day 6: Creatures to fill the land, man

Your brother,

Ryan

* All Spurgeon quotes came from Laid Aside – Why? in Spurgeon’s monthly publication, The Sword and the Trowel, May 1876, as edited by Hannah Wyncoll in the collection The Suffering Letters of C.H. Spurgeon (London: Wakeman Trust, 2007).